Veritas CFO Kenneth Lonchar was fired because he claimed he had an MBA from Stanford University. Further research showed that he did not hold an MBA from any school. Ironically, ''veritas'' means ''truth'' in Latin.
Joseph Ellis, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, was suspended for a year from Mount Holyoke College for lying about serving in the Vietnam War.
Each of these examples, while high-profile and extreme, all fell from the same tree: people lying on their resumes to help influence an employer to hire them. Each of the above cases, however, resulted in job loss or suspension, and, perhaps worse still, the three individuals involved also had to endure the humiliation of being publicly labeled as liars. Not the best way to be remembered.
Resumes are meant, by their very nature, to inform, impress, and inspire a potential employer in order to get the employer to want to talk to you. Most employers, however, only spend about twenty seconds looking at each resume they receive, and worse, most employers view the information contained on resumes as a way to weed out applicants. Putting your best foot forward to present a concise, compelling case for why you should be hired is crucial to getting you invited to the party.
Throughout my career I’ve interviewed hundreds of candidates for a wide variety of jobs. Many of the candidates that I’ve interviewed were upstanding, honest, and candid, and went on to have successful careers at my company. Of those who didn’t get hired, many lost out because of boastful claims made on their resume that they were unable to substantiate during the interview process. As an interviewer, I intentionally focused on claims that were exceptional to truly understand how the person in question did it and to see if the claim was authentic or bogus. Authentic claims went a long way toward recommending a ''hire'' decision, while bogus claims got an automatic ''no hire'' without further consideration.
Let me put this as plainly as I can: Lies about your credentials can permanently kill your career. Putting bogus, or even mildly aggressive, claims on your resume can hurt you in a couple of ways. The first question that arises pertains to competence. Bogus claims will cause a potential employer to question whether you possess the skills required to perform the job. The second question, which is far more important for me, pertains to integrity. If a candidate is willing to stretch the truth about a single fact on his or her resume, what else is he or she not being truthful about? Having your integrity questioned by the interviewer is pretty much your one-way ticket home.
Having said all this, do your best to sell yourself on your resume and dazzle prospective employers with your accomplishments, credentials, and experience. Wow them during your twenty seconds of fame. Just make sure that what they see is really you, and not some figment of your imagination.
About the Author
Lonnie Pacelli is an internationally recognized author and is president of Leading on the Edge International. Lonnie has had over 20 years of leadership experience as an executive, project manager, developer, tester, analyst, trainer, consultant, and business owner. During his 11 years at Accenture, he built leadership expertise consulting with many Fortune 500 companies, including Motorola, Hughes Electronics, and Northrop Grumman. During his nine years at Microsoft, he continued building leadership expertise through the development of some of Microsoft’s internal systems, leading their corporate procurement group, managing their corporate planning group, and leading company-wide initiatives on continuous fiscal improvement and training-process optimization. He has successfully implemented projects ranging from complex IT systems to process reengineering to business strategies.
See more on Lonnie at www.leadingonedge.com and www.smallbizmadesimple.com.
